Hitchhikers Spirits Run 5k/10k
About this race
🏳️🌈 DON'T PANIC — AND BRING YOUR TOWEL! 🏳️🌈
Hitchhiker's Spirits Run — 5K & 10K
📅 Sunday, May 23, 2027
📍 Iron Works Historic Site Joliet, IL
🕙 Start time: 9:00 am
Come run with us in Joliet for a 5K or a 10K celebrating National Towel Day!
Towel Day is celebrated every year on May 25 as a tribute to author Douglas Adams and his beloved series, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. In the Guide, a towel is described as "about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have" — and on Towel Day, fans everywhere carry a towel with them, openly and proudly, in Adams' honor.
So bring your towel. Wave it, wear it, carry it the whole way — the more towels, the better. Costumes inspired by the books, the films, and the galaxy are warmly welcome, and "Don't Panic" is very much the spirit of the day.
Choose your distance: a 5K or a 10K.
Included:
Shirt
Medal
Towel
Swag Bag
Spirits Run is Illinois' statewide 5K adventure series — themed, family-friendly, untimed runs rooted in local folklore and history, hosted at pubs, distilleries, and historic venues, on our way to a 5K in all 102 Illinois counties. Come for the run, stay for the fun, and carry your towel with pride.
Don't panic. Just run. And bring a towel.
Pick your distance
Running
Hitchhikers Spirits Run 5k
Hitchhikers Spirits Run 10K
Typical race-day weather
Based on 4 years of Open-Meteo archive data for this event's race dates in Joliet, plus the 3 days either side.
The sun rises at 5:26 AM and sets at 8:12 PM local time (CDT) in Joliet on May 23, 2027 — 14h 46m of daylight.
Course
No course map published yet.
The organizer hasn't released a route for this event, and we don't publish guesses. If you're the organizer, send us a GPX file and we'll draw the profile.
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🏃 Plan Your Next Race in Joliet
Find upcoming events by distance:
- Joliet 5K Races 9 races
- Joliet Running Calendar 2026 15 races
Where this page comes from. Race details were last updated on . We re-check listings regularly and again in the week before race day.
- Entries, prices, waves and inclusions — the event's official registration page
- Temperature and humidity — Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis via Open-Meteo (CC BY 4.0)
- Elevation and terrain relief — Copernicus DEM GLO-90, ESA (CC BY 4.0)
- Comparisons and counts — Race Discovery calendar, 15 Joliet events
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